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2012 Jury Member

The Rolex Awards for Enterprise

Location: India

Mahrukh TaraporIndia, Born 1946

“Mahrukh Tarapor is one of the most widely respected museum professionals in the world,” said former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Philippe de Montebello, noting her “diplomatic skills, knowledge and energy”.

The Indian-born, American scholar whose fields of expertise include the arts of India, South Asia and the Islamic world, received a Ph.D from Harvard before joining New York’s Metropolitan Museum in 1983. A decade later, she was promoted to the post of associate director for exhibitions, travelling worldwide to negotiate loans for such highly acclaimed intercultural exhibitions as The Glory of Byzantium and its sequel Byzantium: Faith and Power (1997 and 2004), and Art of the First Cities and its sequel Beyond Babylon (2003 and 2008).

Simultaneously serving as The Metropolitan Museum of Art's director for international affairs from 2006 to 2009, Tarapor expanded cultural relationships with other museums, as well as with governments in Europe, the Middle East, Australia and Asia.

Now a consultant working for major institutions such as the British Museum and the Prado, she also maintains a close relationship with the Indian government as a museum advisor.